Impossible Miracles

Chapter 7
Why Are You Crying?

"What am I to you?"

He suddenly asked. She looked up from her book – an exercise in "imagination," as he had worded it. She did not understand the purpose fully, but she tried.

She always tried when it came to her Brother.

She cocked her head as she ran through the possible interpretations of the question, but every one conflicted the present context. She chose the default response.

"What do you mean?"

His expression changed. Furrowed eyebrows, tight lips, slightly narrowed eyes. A "bad" expression, that could be anything from uncomfortable, awkwardness, anxiety to anger or even constipation.

Yet again, not enough context except to rule out the last possibility.

"Never mind. I shouldn't have asked." He turned to leave.

But it was simply a matter of clarification, wasn't it? She reached out to stop him, grabbed him by the sleeve. He turned, eyes widened. Shock.

"I'm sorry. Judging from your personality and actions, my responses would not have been appropriate answers. Can you please clarify so that I can answer the question properly?"

He sighed and stood to face her, though he did remove the fingers clasped to his cuff.

"What would you have replied?"

"Brother, assigned replacement to the phrase 'Master.' My creator. My teacher."

His lips quirked. She had answered correctly, then. This tenuous belief was affirmed when he placed his hand on her head and rubbed it back and forth, breaking her hair out of the hairpins. She waited for him to finish before reaching up and redoing the pins.

It was a new habit of his, one that meant that she had done something "good." Unlike the tears that sometimes appeared when he talked about happy things, this one was unequivocal in its meaning. The smile only supported this inference, and so she remembered everything she did that had earned this action.

Singing. Drawing. Answering certain questions correctly regarding desires or opinions – subjective information.

"You're right about that at least. I shouldn't have expected anything else."

He sighed, but didn't move. Then, sniffling reached her ears. She focused her eyes on his, and realized that they were moist. Was he crying? Did tears in this situation mean he was happy or sad? Considering how his other signs were positive, this one must be one as well.

He reached up to wipe the tracks away, but just as he was lifting his arm, a cough racked his body. He rasped a few times before the attack assaulted him again, bringing him down to his knees, shuddering.

She stood before him, waiting for him to rise again. He usually did after only a few seconds. This time he didn't; he stayed on the floor, staring down at his hands. She focused on them too, and realized they were red.

Red was a color she associated with the attacks. That along with wetness. The amount this time was much larger than before, staining his sleeves and dripping to the floor in shallops.

He continued to stare at the crimson stains. Murmurs reached her ears. "So close… So close…!"

More tears flowed, but this time she was not sure for their reason.

She knelt down before him and looked him in the eye. The movement must have caught his attention because he looked up too.

"Why are you crying?"

She had asked this question countless times before, in an attempt to categorize this most ambiguous expression. However, his response confused her more than before.

His tears flowed harder than before, and this time laughter accompanied the stream, broken intermittently by a cough.